Jeremy Corbyn has been elected as the new leader of the Labour party after a dramatic and gruelling three-month leadership contest. Almost 60% - that's a complete landslide. And he started off as the 'left-wing outsider' on 200-1. Momentous.

Ex_Mil8 saidJeremy Corbyn has been elected as the new leader of the Labour party after a dramatic and gruelling three-month leadership contest. Almost 60% - that's a complete landslide. And he started off as the 'left-wing outsider' on 200-1. Momentous.

Do you have any thoughts about this? I don't know UK politics, but I'm reading some commentary saying Corbyn will swing Labour so far to the radical left that they'll not be competitive against the Tories. Even as the Tories are moving to the radical right with even greater austerity.

Art_Deco saidDo you have any thoughts about this? I don't know UK politics, but I'm reading some commentary saying Corbyn will swing Labour so far to the radical left that they'll not be competitive against the Tories. Even as the Tories are moving to the radical right with even greater austerity.

Mainstream UK politics has become rather homogeneous over the last 20 years. UKIP has provided the only "real" alternative to the main parties, with its right-wing agenda, based seemingly on the basis of “ten things that really annoy people”, with no inkling of implementation method or any costings; a wish list for The Annoyed (not unlike Trump's strategy on your own side of the pond).

The only way Labour can distinguish itself from the Conservatives and the Liberals is to move further to the left, otherwise it risks becoming an irrelevance. It might work and it might not. The Scottish National Party have proved that it can work, having swept the board in Scotland on a left-wing platform at the last general election. There could well be an appetite for a left-wing government by the time the Conservative Party has finished its ongoing "Austerity Britain" project. Given the magnitude of his win, Corbyn now has a huge mandate from all sections of the Labour Party. If he manages to keep it together, who's to say he could not repeat his populist leadership win at a general election?

Art_Deco saidDo you have any thoughts about this? I don't know UK politics, but I'm reading some commentary saying Corbyn will swing Labour so far to the radical left that they'll not be competitive against the Tories. Even as the Tories are moving to the radical right with even greater austerity.

Mainstream UK politics has become rather homogeneous over the last 20 years. UKIP has provided the only "real" alternative to the main parties, with its right-wing agenda, based seemingly on the basis of “ten things that really annoy people”, with no inkling of implementation method or any costings; a wish list for The Annoyed (not unlike Trump's strategy on your own side of the pond).

The only way Labour can distinguish itself from the Conservatives and the Liberals is to move further to the left, otherwise it risks becoming an irrelevance. It might work and it might not. The Scottish National Party have proved that it can work, having swept the board in Scotland on a left-wing platform at the last general election. There could well be an appetite for a left-wing government by the time the Conservative Party has finished its ongoing "Austerity Britain" project. Given the magnitude of his win, Corbyn now has a huge mandate from all sections of the Labour Party. If he manages to keep it together, who's to say he could not repeat his populist leadership win at a general election?

Regarding the SNP, hasn't Scotland always been a progressive jurisdiction of the UK?

libertpaulian saidRegarding the SNP, hasn't Scotland always been a progressive jurisdiction of the UK?

Not especially. The more left-leaning parts of Britain have traditionally been the urban areas (including the Central Belt of Scotland). Here, for example, are the results of the 1983 UK General Election. Each bounded area represents a parliamentary seat, each with a population of around 70,000. This particular election was a big win for the Conservatives, but it illustrates well the traditional areas of Labour support.

You may be an empty-brained psittacine, 43rudeparrot, but clearly some of your fellow Americans are interested. Besides, as I have to keep reminding your conservarump friends, this is a public forum, not a GOP chat room.

THE MYTH OF ANTI-TORY SCOTLANDFrom the turn of the twentieth century up until the 1970s, the Unionist Party, which became the Scottish Conservative Party in 1965, was a major political force, taking turns with its only real competitor, the Labour Party, to be the dominant force. So throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the Unionist Party regularly commanded between 40 and 50 per cent of the Scottish vote, a trend which continued after the Second World War.http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-myth-of-anti-tory-scotland/15855#.VfXK_H9Viko

The SNP are quite adept at re-writing history. It suited their campaign in the recent independence referendum to portray themselves as colonial victims. In truth, Scotland had its own colonial enterprises before the Act of Union (1707), and afterwards arguably contributed more to the expansion of the British Empire than did England.